Analysis: "Intellectual Property and the Right to Private Property"

Tibor R. Machan's abstract concerning the debate on intellectual property can be found by following this link: http://mises.org/journals/scholar/machan11.pdf. The basic argument of Machan's essay is that property can be defined by the presence of human intention, such as that which you will find in a sonnet or a novel. Machan questions the assumed idea that things owned as private property must be tangible, such as a car or a piece of land. This is problematic when a person who labors to create something, or to form a new idea, expects to profit from the value of what they have produced. In fact, Machan will argue that things such as characters and ideas in a novel or play may not be "tangible" in the way that a rock or a tree is tangible, but they are tangible to our senses, or to the ability of our imagination to use our senses.

Machan traces the roots of the argument against intellectual property back to the old Platonic metaphysical idea of ontological dualism, which (to paraphrase) maintains that reality presents itself to humans as either spiritual or material. Yet does the existence of something in the mind or in the imagination make it intangible? Machan would argue that it does not. He also states that there is differentiation on a continuum when it comes to the tangible or intangible scale, providing a more realistic answer to the old Platonic dualism. The fact that a thing is perceptible through our minds alone is what makes something tangible. He also mentions that the right to private property is linked to "human intention" within the classical liberal tradition, through thinkers such as William of Ockham, John Locke, and Ayn Rand (3). Finally, he concludes that it is the human action of intention that truly defines "how private property is acquired"(4). Sidestepping the public policy issue, Machan dissects the philosophical side of the debate to make his argument for intellectual property. He ends with the statement, "The central issue is, instead, whether when someone produces or creates a work-- poem, novel, song, arrangement, computer program, game, or the like (excluding all discoveries)-- he or she may deprived of these without permission? I think not" (4).

Due to the fact that Machan ends with his strongest statement, it is difficult to determine where his argument is headed at the beginning of the essay. It is written more like a political blog than an actual scholarly essay. However, the arguments are practical when it comes to combatting the philosophical foundation of those who would say that authors should have no right to their works. I was disappointed in the lack of organization of his ideas, as he does not say from the beginning what his position is and how he will be arguing it. He jumps from modern examples of intellectual property to Platonic dualism to classical liberalism with minimal or no transitions. I think that the intention of the article was not to convince people of his writing skills, but to make a philosophical statement in favor of intellectual property, while sidestepping the actual policy debate. While he was successful in making a few good points and asking questions that showed the contradictions of the opposite side, he could have expounded his points more thoroughly and applied them to the policy debate.